Stephen Mooney – Interview Part 2

Welcome back guys to the second part of our interview with Stephen Mooney, in which we touch on the Irish creators working in the industry right now, and much much more! If you haven’t yet read it, you can read part 1 here

As always, it’s great to hear of how the ‘Big Two’ of Marvel & DC see how hard the Irish guys work.

Everywhere I’m hearing that, Ryall [Chris Ryall – IDW EIC] says it all the time, CB [CB Cebulski – Senior VP of Creative & Creator Development at Marvel] says it all the time too, they love the Irish work ethic. People like Will & Dec are work horses, they don’t stop! I think Will can do something around 10 pages a week or something ridiculous like that, and they don’t compromise either, it’s good stuff. Dec has really upped his game with all the gorgeous washes and everything he’s doing right now.

Dec’s stuff is always good!

Well that’s the big trick now, he’s got this big book coming with Warren Ellis & Jordie [Bellaire], Injection, coming out. I was saying to him ‘Well, you’ve set yourself up here now!’, and that’s a big series. That’s a lot of work if he plans on using grey wash, and I think he’s planning on doing it all like that, as in, he doesn’t want to step back down from his quality in ‘Moon Knight’, and even his commissions now have his lovely grey-wash in them too. Something like that Groot & Rocket picture we saw earlier.

Dec Shalvey’s Rocket Raccoon & Groot w/ Colours by Ruth Redmond

That was a gorgeous picture! It was really cool when Ruth [Redmond] broke it down across the different layers in the picture.

Yeah, that’s kind of why I was asking her to show the comparisons of the pictures before and after she’d coloured it as it’s so interesting to see & I have to say, her space stuff looks savage! I got her to do a background for me for a cover I did for the Solar: Man of the Atom re-launch and I didn’t have the background for it, well, I had a plain blue one for it but it wasn’t very interesting. So, Ruth was in my house that weekend, sometimes we all meet up in each other’s places and work together in the same space, and she mentioned that she’d an hour or so free and offered to do a new background. She then came out with this gorgeous, lovely purple and blue cosmos effect. It looked fantastic, and I would have spent a whole day doing that and I wouldn’t have gotten to that same level you know.

That just shows then, how much Ruth has taken on board in a short space of time. Ruth’s story is something that I think really needs to be shared as it just shows that with that hard work, dedication and talent, that you can really just throw yourself into comic work.

Oh exactly, she’s flying. And even compared to her stuff when she started, her stuff is massively better. And don’t forget that she’s STILL doing college assignments, while still doing something like 3 Marvel books. She’s obviously able to do it at an incredible pace, which is still an obvious influence from Jordie [Bellaire}. She really couldn’t have had a better teacher there.

I’ve only met Jordie once at D.I.C.E. last year, she seems to have such an infectious personality!

Oh yes, Jordie just gets the room working. If she’s in there, you know you’re gonna do some work. It just happens, she’s like an American Football coach. It’s impossible not to work hard around Jordie as she sets the bar so high. Now, we’re all good at it, but she’s another step up.

I remember reading a comment about her work ethic, that at this rate, Jordie will end up colouring every comic out there!

Well, I think she’s starting to say no now, she was so new and green initially that she never wanted to disappoint anybody. Which all of us are like, it’s so hard to turn down work because if someone is offering you money for a job, you take everything that you can get as you’ll never know where the next job can come from. Now she’s realising (since her Eisner award) people are going to ask ‘Do you think you can fit my book in?’ and she can say no, and instead of reacting like ‘Well I’m never asking you to work on my book(s) ever again…’ they’ll say ‘Well, maybe we can get you again another time?’. So she’s starting to pick and choose a little bit more, meaning that she can start to finally get a little bit of a quality of life because she’s had to miss events etc because of deadlines, especially when an artist is late on theirs which can leave her in a bit of a bind to pick up the slack. Colourists will all tell you the same thing, they all hate delayed art.

For me, you really first popped up for me with Half Past Danger, It just appeared out of the blue and it was a case of the right place and the right time for me to discover it. I pushed it with a lot of friends. How was the process for you with getting the book out there and known?

Ah man, I appreciate that. It got a lot of word of mouth, it definitely did, almost like an independent movie or something like that. I got people coming back and buying another cover or people recommending it to their friends, a second and then a third print on issue one. So, it did better than people expected. I definitely got repeat business, like you mentioned to me earlier about your friend in Canada and his work colleague getting the different variants etc. There were people just coming back for more which makes all the difference.

With the different Variant covers for HPD, where did the artists all come from? Was it through Dec etc and his contacts?

Well, no. It was me mostly, for example, Lee Bermejo is someone I’ve known for years, and he was giving me loads of advice too. I actually have a massive version of his variant at home! I have all of the original covers, except the one that a lot of people loved the most, the ‘movie-poster’ one [Nick Runge’s Variant for issue 3]. He was supposed to give it to me, but a guy offered him three grand for it! He got on to me asking for permission to sell it, and I was like ‘Man, sell the sh*t out of that!’ And well let’s just say, that Nick’s coming back for the sequel so we’ll have another cool movie poster. To be honest, it’s just all mates, people are so sound in comics that they’ll just help you if you ask. Tommy Lee Edwards, a proper artist, I love his cover, and Dec obviously, he’s one of my best mates so I’ll always make him give me something! He doesn’t get away from that! There’s also Rebekah Isaacs, who’s coming to D.I.C.E. this year, did a lovely cover. She was on Angel and is now on Buffy I think? Great artist and is so sound and a person who everyone falls in love with!

You also toured the Hardcover in Germany, how did that go?

Went really well, it’s obviously great to have a foreign edition, you think ‘That’s a bit mad eh?’ I’m hoping for a French one down the line too. It was a whole different thing to here, they took us over and made me feel like I was Jack Kirby or something you know. They are so into their comics over there, cause you’ve got the whole hilarious aspect that they’re the bad guys of HPD, but they don’t give a rat’s a**! They believe it’s all in good fun. It went well, I got to do a nice new version of stuff for Dani Books, who sent me a nice big box of them etc.

Half Past Danger’s German Edition Cover

Did you get to add new things? Did you have to change anything?

They [Dani Books] wanted it the exact same except the cover. The only thing that changed was that they removed all signs of the Swastika, well, actually, they amended them inside the book as the Swastika is not allowed in print. That’s a small price to pay when especially people already know what they are.

And that’s all folks for Part 2! Be sure to check in for Part 3 & 4 coming to you in the next couple of days. Until then, as always, you can also follow us on Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, and be sure to subscribe to our YouTube Channel for all your Geek Needs! If you ever want to follow me and my own ramblings, I’m on the Twitter, here.

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About The Author

Hey! I'm Tom, lover of comics, video games and all things geeky or nerdy! I came to Geek Ireland in 2014 professing a love for Batman & Solid Snake. I enjoy the exchange of ideas and opinions of a verbal nature while arguing with my co-hosts on Press G to Start. I also like hugs...

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